A Curious Conversation

"Honey?..."

"Mmmph?" I respond, pretending to pay attention to the question while I'm reading a book. A bad habit I have.

"You've always wanted to do a circumnavigation haven't you? It's always been a dream of yours, hasn't it?"

"Hmmm... what? Oh. Yes, well I wrote that off when I decided I wanted to get married. It was a good trade off." To myself I add, especially since she's here on the boat with me for a whole year now and we're looking forward to at least one more, which I never expected to happen.. Figuring that was the end of the conversation, I dove back into my book.

A few minutes later: "How long would it take?"

"Huh? What? Take to do what?" Obviously I wasn't keeping up with the discussion.

"To sail around the world." she said.

"Oh... um... about 3 or 4 years I think." Depends on which route you take and how long you mess around along the way." Ok, now back to the book, it's a really good part... wait, did she say something again?

"What was that sweety?" I said a little strained this time, it really was a good part in the book.

"I said, why don't we do it then?" She repeated.

After a few seconds, I scrape my jaw up off the floor and wipe what was probably a pretty silly look off my face. "Really?" "Are you serious?"

She's serious. Wow. Really WOW.

So, we dug out Jimmy Cornell's encyclopedic "World Cruising Routes" and got to work.

A couple months have passed since this conversation and the planning has raised some timing questions. To avoid hurricane season in the South Pacific, we need to transit the Panama Canal sometime in the spring, probably in April. So, we have a decision to make: return to the US for another summer after this winter's trip to the Caribbean or turn left and head for Panama and the South Pacific. We have a lot of prep work to do and the summer is half over. So as not to rush things we may wait a year. This would also give Quinn another year so he remembers more of it. We'll probably make the timing decision by the end of August.


I'm still pinching myself.

Did I mention I married the coolest lady in the world?